The present invention relates to a windrower platform for severing crop from the ground and forming a windrow of cut crop and more specifically relates to an auger arrangement for gathering the crop for forming the windrow.
It is sometimes necessary to cut and windrow a seed or specialty crop so that it dries a desired amount before being introduced into a combine which removes the seed from the stems. Various grass seeds are harvested in this manner. It was found that a windrower platform equipped with upper and lower full-length, counter-rotating crop-centering augers was not entirely satisfactory since short grasses and very long grasses had a tendency of wrapping on the center of the augers. When wrappage of the crop occurs, the platform ceases to function requiring the operator to stop and unwrap the auger(s). Furthermore, when the crop begins to bunch up, seed is lost since the reel will strike the bunched crop. Also, in some conditions, the crop tended not to be fed consistently to the windrow resulting in clumps which were difficult for the combine to thresh requiring the combine to be operated at reduced ground speeds in order to prevent the loss of more seed.
It is known to use a windrower having a platform equipped with first and second sets of overshot augers arranged one ahead of the other, with the augers on the opposite sides of each set having flighting of opposite hand so that cut crop falls onto the sets of augers and is conveyed to the center of the platform and deposited on the ground in a windrow. U.S. Pat. No. 3,412,535, granted to Drummond on Nov. 26, 1968, discloses a platform of this type. In order to keep crop from feeding over the rear set of augers, which might happen when cutting a relatively tall crop, it is known to provide a full-length upper auger in combination with the two sets of right- and left-hand augers, with the position of the upper auger being rearward and above the second set of augers and with its direction of rotation being opposite to that of the two sets of augers. Using two sets of augers has the disadvantage of being relatively heavy and of not being compact in the fore-and-aft direction.